''Steve Jackson Games, Inc. v. United States Secret Service'', 816

F. Supp. The ''Federal Supplement'' ( is a case law reporter published by West Publishing in the United States that includes select opinions of the United States district courts since 1932, and is part of the National Reporter System. Although the ''Fed ...

432 (W.D. Tex. 1993), was a

lawsuit - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...

arising from a 1990 raid by the

United States Secret Service The United States Secret Service (USSS or Secret Service) is a federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security charged with conducting criminal investigations and protecting U.S. political leaders, their families, and ...

on the headquarters of

Steve Jackson Games Steve Jackson Games (SJGames) is a game company, founded in 1980 by Steve Jackson, that creates and publishes role-playing, board, and card games, and (until 2019) the gaming magazine ''Pyramid''. History Founded in 1980, six years after the cr ...

(SJG) in

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...

. The raid, along with the Secret Service's unrelated

Operation Sundevil Operation Sundevil was a 1990 nationwide United States Secret Service crackdown on "illegal computer hacking activities." It involved raids in approximately fifteen different cities and resulted in three arrests and the confiscation of computers, ...

, was influential in the founding of the

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ci ...

Raid

In October 1988,

Bell South BellSouth, LLC (stylized as ''BELLSOUTH'' and formerly known as BellSouth Corporation) was an American telecommunications holding company based in Atlanta, Georgia. BellSouth was one of the seven original Regional Bell Operating Companies afte ...

became aware that a proprietary document relating to its

9-1-1 , usually written 911, is an emergency telephone number for the United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Palau, Argentina, Philippines, Jordan, as well as the North American Numbering Plan (NANP), one of eight N11 codes. Like other emergency nu ...

system had been posted on a

bulletin board system A bulletin board system (BBS), also called computer bulletin board service (CBBS), is a computer server running software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user can perform functions such as ...

(BBS) in Illinois. This was reported to the Secret Service in July 1989. In February 1990 Secret Service found that the document had been posted on the "Phoenix" BBS in Austin, Texas, which was operated by

Loyd Blankenship Loyd Blankenship (born 1965), better known by his pseudonym The Mentor, is a computer hacker and writer. He has been active since the 1970s, when he was a member of the hacker groups Extasyy Elite and Legion of Doom. Writings Hacker Manifest ...

, who was at the time employed by SJG and moderator of the company's own BBS, "Illuminati." The Secret Service believed there was

probable cause In United States criminal law, probable cause is the standard by which police authorities have reason to obtain a warrant for the arrest of a suspected criminal or the issuing of a search warrant. There is no universally accepted definition o ...

to search computers belonging to Blankenship and his employer, and a

search warrant A search warrant is a court order that a magistrate or judge issues to authorize law enforcement officers to conduct a search of a person, location, or vehicle for evidence of a crime and to confiscate any evidence they find. In most countries, ...

was issued on February 28. The Secret Service executed the warrant on SJG on 1 March 1990.816 F. Supp. at 437. Three SJG computers were seized, along with over 300

floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined w ...

s. Among these was the master copy of ''

GURPS Cyberpunk ''GURPS Cyberpunk'' is a genre toolkit for cyberpunk-themed role-playing games set in a near-future dystopia, such as that envisioned by William Gibson in his influential novel ''Neuromancer''. It was published in 1990 after a significant delay c ...

'', a

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...

written by Blankenship which SJG was about to release.816 F. Supp. at 438–439. The "Illuminati" server included private personal emails to and from SJG employees. The material was returned in June 1990.

Trial

SJG sued the Secret Service for damages arising from loss of revenue while the computers were in its custody. Steve Jackson and three other employees also sued for invasion of privacy, claiming the seizures were illegal under the Privacy Protection Act of 1980,

Electronic Communications Privacy Act Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA) was enacted by the United States Congress to extend restrictions on government wire taps of telephone calls to include transmissions of electronic data by computer ( ''et seq.''), added new pro ...

and

Stored Communications Act The Stored Communications Act (SCA, codified at 18 U.S.C. Chapter 121 §§ 2701–2712) is a law that addresses voluntary and compelled disclosure of "stored wire and electronic communications and transactional records" held by third-party i ...

.816 F.Supp. at 434. Loyd Blankenship was not party to the suits.816 F. Supp. at 432. The case came to trial in 1993 in the Western Texas District Court. SJG was represented by the Austin firm of George, Donaldson & Ford, while the lead counsel was Pete Kennedy. SJG won two out of the three counts and was awarded $50,000 in statutory damages and $250,000 in

attorney's fees Attorney's fee is a chiefly United States term for compensation for legal services performed by an attorney (lawyer or law firm) for a client, in or out of court. It may be an hourly, flat-rate or contingent fee. Recent studies suggest that when l ...

. No

compensatory damages At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognised at ...

were awarded. The judge said that Steve Jackson had little involvement in SJG at the time of the raid, and the company was close to

Chapter 11 bankruptcy Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code (Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, whe ...

, and that Jackson's renewed involvement in the wake of the raid had turned the company's fortunes around. The judge reprimanded the Secret Service, calling their warrant preparation "sloppy," suggesting that they needed "better education" regarding relevant statutes, and finding that they had no basis to suspect SJG of any wrongdoing. The third count dealing with interception of e-mail was upheld in October 1994 by the

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (in case citations, 5th Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following federal judicial districts: * Eastern District of Louisiana * Mi ...

. The

was an

amicus curiae An ''amicus curiae'' (; ) is an individual or organization who is not a party to a legal case, but who is permitted to assist a court by offering information, expertise, or insight that has a bearing on the issues in the case. The decision on ...

at the appeal. Jackson and other Austin area activists including

John Quarterman John S. Quarterman (born April 27, 1954) is an American author and longtime Internet participant. He wrote one of the classic books about networking prior to the commercialization of the Internet. He has also written about risk management. Biog ...

Jon Lebkowsky Jon Lebkowsky (born April 20, 1949) is a web consultant/developer, author, and activist who was the co-founder of FringeWare Review (along with Paco Nathan). FringeWare, an early attempt at ecommerce and online community, published a popular " ...

Bruce Sterling Michael Bruce Sterling (born April 14, 1954) is an American science fiction author known for his novels and short fiction and editorship of the ''Mirrorshades'' anthology. In particular, he is linked to the cyberpunk subgenre. Sterling's first ...

, Smoot Carl-Mitchell, Lar Kaufman and Matt Lawrence formed EFF-Austin in 1991. Although the raid was not a part of

, this law enforcement effort, which spanned two years, has a tarnished image owing to a lack of successful prosecutions and questionable procedures. The ''GURPS Cyberpunk'' book lists "Unsolicited Comments: The United States Secret Service" on its credits page.

References

Sources

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Citations

{{Reflist

External links

SJ Games vs. the Secret Service
from Steve Jackson Games website * The EFF'
Steve Jackson Games v. Secret Service Case Archive
1993 in United States case law Legion of Doom (hacker group) Electronic Frontier Foundation United States district court cases United States Secret Service fr:Steve Jackson Games#Perquisition du Secret service